Apps & Software

Indecision 2.0: Are Apps Taking Away Your Power to Decide?

“I've got a free hour tomorrow. Should I nap, work, exercise or sauna?"

The question comes from erinloechner who is using an app called Seesaw. She’s posted four photos for anyone interested in helping her out: There’s a peaceful bed, a spa-ready bathrobe, an exercise chart that looks like something off Etsy and a surprisingly elegant shot of a wall plug. So far, 139 people have cast their votes, with 48 going in favor of nap. (Sauna came in a close second with 42 votes. No word yet on erinloechner’s verdict.)

Welcome to the world of decision-making apps, where dilemmas are solved with a poll and a snapshot. Seesaw launched earlier this year, but it certainly isn't the first app of its kind. There’s Polar, which solicits timely feedback from friends or a general community. There’s Precision Decision, which promises “the BEST decision possible,” be it choosing a job, dumping a guy or just going out for a walk. You can even use the app to second-guess yourself after the fact.

On Seesaw, a poll resembles an Instagram post in that it’s basically a picture tagged with a question instead of a caption. Debates range from the semi-personal (“What should we do on date night?”) to the mundane (“Which dress should I buy?”). But overall, says Seesaw founder Aaron Gotwalt, the point is to make those decisions far easier. “Seesaw is coming out of this recognition that this is a natural behavior,” he says. “If you've ever tried to ask, ‘Where should I eat tonight?’ No matter who you deal with, there's a varying taste level.”

Consumers already text their friends for help with making decisions, so in his mind, the app just casts a wider net to deliver smarter answers. “Our competition right now is probably SMS,” he says.

While it’s natural to seek a little validation, the bigger issue is whether these apps have the potential to make us more dependent on social media overall. Have our smartphones become such a crutch we can’t even go to the bathroom before conducting a poll? Or do they have the power to broaden users’ perspective, helping us to see more than one or two sides?

“I think it's easy to worry about whether this is sending us to a bad place, whether we're outsourcing the most basic modes of thought,” says David Freedman, contributing editor for The Atlantic and author of The Perfected Self. “But having hung out with some of these cutting edge, aggressive people in Silicon Valley, I've never seen even the slightest hint that they've lost their ability to function as normal human beings.”

In fact, Freedman envisions this decision-making technology becoming so woven into the texture of our lives that we practically won’t even notice it. “This is a grand experiment in the evolution of the human race,” he says. "This is the first time we've had tools that have enabled us to seek many people's opinions. We won't know at least for a few decades if it’s changing us, but by the time we figure it out, we won't mind.”

That’s partly because we will actually get smarter answers and won’t feel pressed to question it. “This has been shown clearly in studies,” says Freedman, where “some decisions come out better the more people you bring into it because the error cancels out. The classic example is trying to find out what the weather is or will be tomorrow. Ask one person, you may get a bad answer. Ask 100 people, the average answer will be very good.”

But not everyone adapts to technology the same way. For confident people, a public poll just might be the icing on their decision-making cake. But insecure types might find their turmoil exacerbated.

“It really depends on the user more than the technology itself,” says Dr. Edrick Dorian, a clinical psychologist and co-developer of the popular self-help app, MoodKit. “The problems arise when affirmation-seeking becomes excessive. Instead of being able to make your own decisions, you might unwittingly shape yourself into a pattern of needing other people's opinion to make a decision and thereby diminish your confidence.”

The apps could also have a negative knock-on effect for indecisive people as well. Not everyone offering their opinions will share the user's set of values, though following one's values are key to making smarter decisions, says Dorian. "The more we depart from our own values and lean on other people, who will offer suggestions based on their own values, the more we might be departing from the blueprint that ideally guides our decisions and actions."

For children and teens first acquiring this skill, these apps raise other concerns. There’s the so-called zombie effect, as cited by Hanna Roisin in The Atlantic story, "The Touch-Screen Generation", and coined by psychiatrist Dr. Jane Healy. Then there’s the issue of whether the apps have the potential to hamper kids' ability to think for themselves, just as they might for adults.

“Children have an idea that anything that comes out of an electronic device is omniscient and smarter than we are,” says Healy, an educational psychologist and author of Your Child's Growing Mind. So it’s important for parents to sit with them while they’re using the app in order to turn what might be a passive experience—merely posting questions and awaiting responses—into a critical thinking activity. “I believe that most, if not all parents want their children to become independent thinkers,” she tells Mashable, so you might want to ask, “Is this the best way to do this? Could we think of better alternatives?”

At the end of the day, it all boils down to connections—and getting people to take some kind of action, Seesaw's Gotwald says. “We're really interested in seeing people do something with it. We're not interested in whether Batman is cooler than Robin. We want people making decisions and want the input of a group of people.”

Mashable
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